This past Friday my self-directed task was to drop off Shauna’s laptop at the school for an IT update. Since it was such magnificent weather I decided to ride my motorcycle. And also, I’d replied to a FB ad regarding vintage Expo86 literature and I’d arranged to pick it up later in the week, so the two errands coincided with a nice morning’s ride. Or so I thought.
My most previous ride had been about three weeks ago to
Chilliwack for a vintage VW parts swap meet. Traffic had been fairly heavy,
especially through Langley and Surrey, then heavy again once I got back into
Vancouver city limits. And since this had been my first ride of the season, I
was quite sore as I approached home. Therefore I decided not to top up the gas
tank (foreshadowing) prior to parking the motorcycle at home. And, as I have
discovered from past experience, I did not remember to go directly to the gas
station prior to embarking on my new trip.
I fired up the bike and headed to my first stop in north
Burnaby, remembering mid-route that I hadn’t even checked my fuel level today. I
made my purchase and headed off to Stop #2. Again, never once thought of gas. I
merged into freeway traffic with no issues and entered the Cassiar tunnel.
Halfway through the tunnel someone directly ahead of me absolutely floored their
muscle SUV and accelerated in a cannon-shot blast of carbon particles and explosive
sound. The hugely amplified sound within the confined space of the tunnel scared the hell out of me.
I was just calming down as I exited the tunnel and was approaching the base of the bridge’s incline when…
…that all-to-familiar mechanical hiccupping began. I can’t
think of too much of a worse place for that to happen; except maybe inside the
Cassiar tunnel, LOL. Embarrassingly, fuel drainages have been a bit of a
running commentary with this motorcycle (no fuel gauge). I immediately tapped
the reserve switch on the fairing. No response whatsoever. I was in the middle
lane with traffic merging from the east onramp cloverleaf. The motorcycle
started to decelerate to its fuel-starved chug-chug state. The bridge was
approaching rapidly, and as I applied more and more throttle the bike slowed correspondingly
ever more rapidly.
To my shock and horror the engine died completely while I
was still in the centre lane! I could see from my rearview mirrors that the driver
right behind me had thankfully turned on his emergency flashers as my
motorcycle is not equipped with that feature. I moved over to the curb lane and
began to push the bike up the bridge deck incline, partially protected by
the vehicle behind me that still had its emergency flashers engaged. I don’t know how
long that vehicle remained behind me. Several cars and trucks passed me very close
to my left side as I pushed. There's no shoulder lane on the bridge.
Fortunately the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge has three lanes
in each direction, plus it was mid-day; not yet rush hour. Despite those
conditions I bet my stall backed up traffic into the tunnel during the 15-20
minutes or so that I estimate it took me to push my bike up the incline. I took
three or four breaks to catch my breath and two or three passing cars slowed to
ask if they could help. One guy driving a pickup even offer to help me load my
bike into his pickup bed to get me over the bridge. But I could see that his
ramps were short and due to the weight of my motorcycle plus the incline of the
bridge I knew we’d never be able to load it. I thanked him and continued
pushing. Even a cyclist stopped on the sidewalk to ask if he could help in any
way.
